but it will not justify a stain upon the House of Commons of this country. And, gentlemen, surely this author, considerable as he is as a man acquainted with composition, betrays the cause of Mr. Hastings, as I should think; at least he does Mr. Hastings no service by going beyond his defence, by deserting and abandoning the declamation, and the reasoning, of which he seems to be a considerable master, and deviating into slander and calumny upon the House of Commons, his accusers.

My learned friend has used an analogy. He tells you the House of Commons is a grand jury; I close with him in that analogy; I ask you, as lovers of good order, as men desirous of repressing licentiousness, as persons who wish that your country should be decently and well governed, whether you would endure for an instant, if this were an information against the defendant, who had published that a grand jury found a bill, not because they thought it a right thing that the person accused should be put upon his trial, but that they found the indictment against him because he was meritorious; that they did it from principles of private animosity, and not with a regard to public justice. If an indictment were brought before you, for a slander of that sort upon a grand jury, could you hesitate an instant in saying that it was reprehensible, and a thing not to be endured? Why then, if the whole representatives of the nation are

acting in that capacity; if, after many years' investigation, they bring charges against an individual, is it any apology, justification it cannot be, for an author, in his zeal for his friend, to tack to it that which must be a disgrace to the country if it were true, and therefore must not be circulated with impunity? The commendation which even my learned friend has bestowed upon this work, the impassioned and animated manner in which he has recommended it to your perusal, and that of every man in the country, most manifestly prove what I stated in opening this cause; that when such mischief as this is found in a book, written by a person of no mean abilities, it comes recommended to, and in fact misleads, the best understandings in the country. I leave any man to judge of the mischievous tendency of such a composition, compared with the squibs, paragraphs, and idle trash of the day, which frequently die away with it. Upon this principle, those passages which I selected and put into this information, and which immediately regard the House of Commons, naturally gave offence to the House. They felt themselves calumniated and aspersed, and entitled to redress from a jury.

My learned friend says: Why don't the House of Commons themselves punish it? Is that an argument to be used in the mouth of one who recommends clemency? Does he recommend that the

iron hand of power should come down upon a man of this sort, instead of temperately, wisely, and judiciously submitting to the common law of this country, saying, let him be dealt with by that common law? There he will have a scrupulously impartial trial. There he will have every advantage that the meanest subject of the country is entitled to.

But, says my learned friend, passages are selected from distant pages, and tacked together; the context between must explain the meaning of those passages; and he compares it to taking one-half of a sentence, and tells you that if any man should say, there is no God, taking that part alone, he would be a blasphemer; whereas taking the whole verse, that the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God, in that sense it becomes directly the reverse of blasphemy. Now, has he found any one garbled sentence in the whole course of this information? Is not every one a clear, distinct, and separate proposition? On the contrary, when he himself accuses me, not personally but officially, of not having stated the whole of this volume upon record, and undertaking to supply my defects, he misses this very sentence: "Assertions so hardy, and accusations so atrocious, ought not to have been introduced into the preamble of an impeachment, before an assembly so respectable as the house of peers, without the clearest and

most incontrovertible evidence. In all transactions. of a political nature there are many concealed movements that escape the detection of the world; but there are some facts so broad and glaring, so conspicuous and prominent, as to strike the general eye and meet the common level of the human understanding."

Now, gentlemen, I only adduce this to show that it is possible that two leaves may be turned over at once on the defendant's side of the question; and likewise to show you that I have not, for the purpose of accusation, culled and picked out every passage that I might have picked out, or every one that would bear an offensive construction; but have taken those prominent parts where this author has abandoned the purpose my learned friend ascribes to him, that of extenuating the guilt imputed to Mr. Hastings, and of showing that he had merit rather than demerit with the public. The passages were selected to show that I have betaken myself to the fifth head of the work, as I enumerated them before, where the author does not content himself with executing that purpose, but holds out the House of Commons as persons actuated by private malice, not only to the eyes of the subjects of this country, but also to surrounding nations, whose eyes are unquestionably upon us, throughout the whole course of the proceeding.

I ask you whether any reasonable answer has been given to the interpretation which I put upon the various passages in this book? The first of them, I admit, with my learned friend, is simply an introduction, and is stated in the information merely to show that the author himself knew the position and the state of things, viz., that the impeachment had been carried up to the House of Lords, and was there depending for their judg

ment.

Then, after having reasoned somewhat upon the introduction to these several articles of impeachment, and after having stated that these had been circulated in India, he goes on to say:

"Will accusations, built upon such a baseless fabric, prepossess the public in favor of the impeachment? What credit can we give to multiplied and accumulated charges, when we find that they originate from misrepresentation and falsehood ?"

My learned friend himself told you, in a subsequent part of his speech, that those accusations originated from an inquiry which lasted two years and a half, by a secret committee of the House of Commons, of which I myself was a pretty laborious member if that be so, what pretence is there here for impregnating the public with a belief that from false, scandalous and fabricated materials, those charges did originate? Is not that giving a